Guns don’t kill people; governments kill people

Incidentally, apropos the fact that government agencies are stockpiling weapons and ammunition, Charles Cooke explains that the numbers aren’t that scary when one considers how many people serve in the various agencies, along with the fact that sometimes the agents have to confront people angered by agency tactics or engaged in criminal acts under agency purview. He has a point. There’s probably not a scary conspiracy theory going on. But there’s still something scary going on, and Cooke nails what it is. Indeed, he nails it so precisely that I’m going to quote him at some length here:

Fair enough. But here one starts to sympathize with the malcontents. There is a world of difference between the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, or Forest Service and the Department of Education, and that there is no grand clandestine plan for the subjugation of America should by no means be taken to imply that every government action is acceptable. Questions do still abound: Whether it is in possession of one bullet or 1 million bullets, should the federal Department of Education be armed in the first place? If so, why? Should its OIG be investigating external fraud rather than handing it over to the police or the DOJ or the FBI? For those federal departments that play no role in combating domestic and foreign threats — such as the DoE — what would constitute a threat requiring armed confrontation with malefactors?

In 2011, a story about a Department of Education raid went the rounds. Initial versions suggested that the department had commissioned a SWAT team to break into a California home and arrest the estranged husband of a woman who had defaulted on her student loan. Mercifully, this was incorrect. There was no SWAT team involved, nor was the target being investigated for unpaid loans. But the reality was not necessarily much better. Instead, the DoE announced that it had conducted the raid itself, in pursuit of an American citizen that it suspected of “bribery, fraud, and embezzlement of federal student aid funds.” It was a disaster; the suspect no longer lived in the house, a fact that special agents eventually discovered after they had smashed in the doors at dawn, thrown the occupant’s children into a police car, and kept the suspect’s (innocent) husband in handcuffs in a hot squad car for six hours.

As the local ABC affiliate reported, in an attempt to clear up the confusion, “police officers did not participate in breaking [the target’s] door, handcuffing him, or searching his home.” Instead, the Department of Education did. Judging by their ammunition purchases, the Social Security Administration and the IRS could have done so, too. That, and not fantasies about a plan to counter phantom civil unrest, is what should concern Americans.

Like this:

I realized after a few seconds that the gal in the video had said “democide,” but at first, it sure sounded like “dhimmicide.” I tried to work out what the practical differences were between the two, but once you have a government that is liquidating its assets, so to speak, it’s a distinction without a difference, isn’t it?

Make them subject to the law in cases of this sort….that is, don’t provide sovereign immunity if there was neglect that violates a “reasonable care” standard, as judged by a citizen’s panel, NOT by the agency, itself.

We have something similar for the medical system….if they operate by appropriate standards of care, they have little to fear from the tort bar (or so the left tells us). In fact, if we made the DOE, EPA, SSA, IRS, etc. subject to the same sorts of legal standards and responsibility as the medical profession, I bet we’d get tort reform in fairly short order – something that would REALLY be a blessing to the United States and its citizenry!

Det. Williams with the Polk County Sheriff’s Department tells KOIN 6 News that they believe a piece of the shotgun was caught in the trigger area of the AR-15. While crossing the field the truck hit a bump causing the weapon to fire once striking and killing Mendoza.

Oldflyer

Ironically, we learn that significant ammunition purchases are for such entities as the Social Security Administration, which has hundreds of armed agents. Who knew?

We knew we had the FBI which we thought was the Federal law enforcement arm. But, then we have the Secret Service, which does a lot more than protect folks who are of great value to the nation (well, aren’t they?). Then comes the ATF, which has something to do with alcohol and tobacco, and exporting guns to Mexico, and has an army of armed agents. Don’t forget the Border Patrol, the Customs Service, the DEA, the Capital Police, National Park Rangers, the Marshal Service, and who knows how many more.
I bet that most people who worry about controlling guns have no idea how many armed people the federal government has aimed at American citizens.
I haven’t forgotten the local constabulary either. It is perhaps noteworthy that here in Southern California there have been more people shot by cops this year than by any one other than the ex-cop who went on the rampage.

Ron19

Drones don’t kill prople (unless they crash on top of them): the drone controllers who operate them kill people by the authority of their superiors.

Call me Lennie

Where did they get some of those numbers? The figure of 61 million for the Soviet Union is almost double the next highest estimate. The widely acclaimed “Black Book of Communism” which attempted to systematically account, episode by episode for all victims of the various Communist states, puts the death toll for the Soviet Union at 20-25 million. Some conservatives may argue that these European intellectuals were a little conservative in their estimates, but not to the tune of 300%. In a time when it’s difficult to get people to understand that Communists killed anyone, I don’t think it helps to be grossly inflating death tolls.

Other death tolls appear to be in line, with the exception of Japan’s. Given that Imperial Japan was one of the most fanatical and brutal militarzed regimes in history and given that Japan was in control of almost 400 million civilians who were deemed subhuman in China and S.E Asia for periods of 4 to 8 years, it is highly likely that as many as 10 million civilians and more were killed. The hell, 350,000 people in Nanking alone were murdered in just a few months.

Although I agree with the figure of 20 million victims of the Third Reich, I’ve always had a problem with the idea that if the German populace had not been disarmed in the early Thities, then these millions of people might have been spared .. as if this was the reason the Third Reich was able to give full vent to its pathologies. In fact only 3% of that figure were German citizens and the other 97% were killed by German citizens in the wars started by their leaders … which were enthusiastically supported by the German people. This “if only the citizenry hadn’t surrenderd its weapons” doesn’t work in the context of Nazi Germany. On the other hand, it is highly persuasive in the case of Russia; it was a nation with large numbers of excellent shooters — as the Germans discovered in WWII

Jose

Call me Lennie,

The 61 million Soviet deaths quoted in the video is lower than most estimates I’ve heard. Perhaps it depends on whether you include battle casualties in WW2, or some other variation.

But in an article published yesterday by Ion Mihai Pacepa (the highest ranking eastern block defector ever), he states “some 94 million people were killed during the lifetime of the Soviet empire[i] so as to uphold the heretical system of socialism…”

People might have perhaps forgot about the Left’s actions at Waco and Ruby Ridge. As well as various other SWAT ops around the country that turned deadly.

Most people pretend to believe it is merely incompetence or foolishness or lack of oversight and regulations. In truth, it had more to do with the stinking rot of evil, the mere fact that the Left exercises power is what causes it to happen.

Give them control of extra judicial execution powers, immigration powers, nationalization of companies, hyperinflation of the currency to repay debts, and various other powers, and see what corruption really becomes.

When the Left holds political power, they can get away with hundreds of murders. It’s not difficult for them. Because their enemies are pretty weak.

It’s hard to tie up abstract evil in countries Americans may have never visited, like Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Russia, Germany, Italy, with the very real evil of the Left in this nation. But it’s not hard to remember a few decades ago to the things the LEft actually did in this nation. Democrats can always say they had nothing to do with these people. Just as Obama said he never heard such things from his pastor and didn’t know about Ayers’ history. It’s a little bit harder to say that “I didn’t know I ordered the deaths of those children at Waco”. The fact that it is easy for people to forget these things, to the extent that a murderer like Ted Kennedy can be glorified as a lion of a man by the Left and Republicans say absolutely nothing to the Borker and porker, says much.
When the very idea of standing in the presence of a Leftist brings on the dual feelings of nausea and hate, only then will people be ready for a change.

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